Non humanoid robots are already in warehouses in some varying capacity. Humanoid robots aren't really versatile enough to be general purpose but I suppose they're a possibility in the future. All I can imagine is that if they're made safe enough to be around other humans they'll have to be quite dumb in a sense (except for the ones around the war industry)
End of the decade is my prediction. We are there GPT Astra shows signs of it. Give it a few more generations. Now if AI robot with compute onboard the robot, that might be multiple decades away, I don’t see compute becoming that abundant and small anytime soon
Xpeng has an AI chip that they are putting in their robots (and in their cars). Their first robot walked off the production line last week. They want to be up and producing these things by the end of this year. These are intended for use in factories, not the home. But they seem pretty capable and I don't see a big technical gap with suitability for home usage. End of this decade seems reasonable as an expectation.
The real bottleneck is physical. Going from limited volume production to producing these by the millions and eventually billions is going to take some time and an enormous amount of resources and investment. I expect that might take a decade or two to ramp up. The first generations are probably going to be a bit of a toy for rich people as they will likely be a combination of expensive and not limited utility. But that could change rapidly.
Wow, the way this site scrolls and pollutes the browser history is pretty terrible! I gave up trying to go back and just closed it and started a new tab
I love the idea of robot helpers but I don't love the idea of putting cameras all over my house and having ad companies surveil my intimate space.
I do not think people are even recognizing the security ramifications of these devices. A picture of your key is enough to replicate it[0], and yet we're just going to put these devices everywhere? LLMs have been pretty easy to jailbreak too, you think thieves aren't just going to get these robots to open the doors for them? Or what about governments? Even if you trust your government now, will you trust them with data where they can literally see everything you do and say? That's well beyond 1984. Or just what about what we see from top labs like OpenAI, Anthropic, or even Google and Apple? These trillion dollar companies are not showing themselves to be good at protecting data. Obviously some better than others, but this is a whole new level of intimacy with the data they'll get. Everyone is pissed at Flock, and you want to put mobile Flock in your house?
No thanks, it isn't worth trading all that for not having to load up the dish washer and cook my own meals.
I can't believe these discussions aren't more common.
I also don't like the idea of putting cameras all over my house and having ad companies surveil my intimate space, and I also don't like to add further things that require electrical power, and/or that make noise, etc. This is in addition to the security ramifications that you describe and that you don't describe, and other issues.
People also underestimate how dangerous these humanoid robots are. If we comply with the OSHA standards, we would need to place these robots in an enclosure with distance monitoring.
Mind you, because contemporary humanoid robots do not even have an e-stop. It’s a solution searching for a problem and blood.
What format is this post in? One or even half a line per image. Why? It's like watching those short form video content but in text format. Is this for getting more scroll depth?
The purpose of building humanoid robots is actually very simple: we want machines to feel lively and familiar.
We are not the best creatures at performing every possible job, yet we are so interested in building humanoid robots. Instead, we could build specialized robots for each job and create ways for them to integrate seamlessly into an ecosystem that includes humans and other robots.
A cooking robot, for example, doesn't necessarily need to look humanoid. It could be a completely autonomous kitchen with no hands at all, while another robot could have some kind of interface or mechanism that allows it to integrate with and interact with the kitchen.
I appreciate that the site also shows examples of this approach. But even then, we keep building humanoid robots because, deep down, they feel more alive. Seeing something that looks like a person working gives us a strange sense of joy and satisfaction.
Funny how much of robotics is driven not just by what is practical, but by what feels alive to us.
I think it's more than that for two reasons: 1) Humanoid robots are general-purpose, which is great in domains where it's not economical to design specialized robots and 2) they are also drop-in replacements for humans. If you have a kitchen already, you can just drop in a humanoid robot without having to redesign your whole kitchen, which makes adoption much easier.
What sort of robot would you need to load and unload a dishwasher, collecting and storing the crockery etc.? What sort of robot would you need to load and unload the laundry, fold and store the clothes?
The biggest reason for humanoid robots is that they will need to function in environments designed for humans and used by humans, sometimes even alongside the robots.
This is very different to something like a factory or even a warehouse, that can be designed to be used almost exclusively by the robots.
>What sort of robot would you need to load and unload a dishwasher, collecting and storing the crockery etc.? What sort of robot would you need to load and unload the laundry, fold and store the clothes?
Correct, when you think about it, all the "world is designed for humans" statements inherently assume that humans are still needed for the specific task to be automated.
For example, we bolt robot arms on tables, so that the work space is at a comfortable height for humans, but if the robot arm had the exact same intuition and intelligence as a human, you could just install it onto the floor. Suddenly the entire rationale, the table, which is the representative stand-in for "the world was designed for humans" is gone.
It's not that we necessarily need a specialized machine, it's that a generalized machine doesn't have to be humanoid.
The practical isn't being given due consideration here. We spend the enormous majority of our time in the built environment. Every single aspect of our homes (from the size of doorways to the level of countertops) is designed around median human size and form. It's ludicrous to suggest these will change to accommodate the need of personal service robots - which already face a host of barriers to adoption, from privacy to cost to reliability etc. If there ever are to be general purpose domestic robots, they will absolutely be 'humaniform' to use Azimov's terminology. Sure a large hotel or hospital or facility can adapt itself to the shape and needs of more specialised machines, but we're not doing that in our homes. Nor are we likely to return to a jetson's vision of dozens of separate functionally distinct machines in the home. We've been doing precisely the opposite for decades - moving more distinct functions to combined devices as housing gets smaller and more expensive.
We have cooking robots thought. They're the production lines of deep frozen meals and the microwave ovens.
We have automated large chunks of the economy already. I don't thing building humanoid robots is gonna drive a major further increase in automation.
For one, I don't think we have the technology for it. Servo motors is not it. The human hand has 20+ degrees of freedom. We're not gonna build a great robotic hand with step motors.
I stopped using my Roborock because it was such a pain to move everything out of the way (chairs etc.) so it could do a good job. Once I had a toddler, it was basically impossible to use.
Given that this is a much simpler problem than a fully humanoid robot, I'm not going to hold my breath for those.
We've had AI robots in our homes as the article points out in the form of a Roomba or cleaning robot. Arguably before that, we've had robotics in the form of dishwasher and washing machines with a range of sensors and actuators, and a small amount of autonomy. We've had humanoids in the home already in the form of toys, I remember RoboSapien from the early 2000's [1].
I think the next advancement are robots like the MicroDuck [2], a little gimmicky, but demonstrating higher levels of intelligence that everybody can afford and collaborate on together. Once that has the ability to return to a docking station on low battery and recharge, you basically have a fully autonomous robot pet in your home.
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[ 1.2 ms ] story [ 74.9 ms ] threadThe real bottleneck is physical. Going from limited volume production to producing these by the millions and eventually billions is going to take some time and an enormous amount of resources and investment. I expect that might take a decade or two to ramp up. The first generations are probably going to be a bit of a toy for rich people as they will likely be a combination of expensive and not limited utility. But that could change rapidly.
I do not think people are even recognizing the security ramifications of these devices. A picture of your key is enough to replicate it[0], and yet we're just going to put these devices everywhere? LLMs have been pretty easy to jailbreak too, you think thieves aren't just going to get these robots to open the doors for them? Or what about governments? Even if you trust your government now, will you trust them with data where they can literally see everything you do and say? That's well beyond 1984. Or just what about what we see from top labs like OpenAI, Anthropic, or even Google and Apple? These trillion dollar companies are not showing themselves to be good at protecting data. Obviously some better than others, but this is a whole new level of intimacy with the data they'll get. Everyone is pissed at Flock, and you want to put mobile Flock in your house?
No thanks, it isn't worth trading all that for not having to load up the dish washer and cook my own meals.
I can't believe these discussions aren't more common.
[0] https://github.com/makalin/KeyForge3D
I mean, the OP's argument is concerning negative effects that may be hidden or obscured by the suppliers of such robots.
Your comment regarding their use of electricity and that they make noise - well that's kind of obvious... Nobody is forcing you to buy these robots.
Mind you, because contemporary humanoid robots do not even have an e-stop. It’s a solution searching for a problem and blood.
So don't buy one from an ad company then? There are home robots that run entirely on-device.
We are not the best creatures at performing every possible job, yet we are so interested in building humanoid robots. Instead, we could build specialized robots for each job and create ways for them to integrate seamlessly into an ecosystem that includes humans and other robots.
A cooking robot, for example, doesn't necessarily need to look humanoid. It could be a completely autonomous kitchen with no hands at all, while another robot could have some kind of interface or mechanism that allows it to integrate with and interact with the kitchen.
I appreciate that the site also shows examples of this approach. But even then, we keep building humanoid robots because, deep down, they feel more alive. Seeing something that looks like a person working gives us a strange sense of joy and satisfaction.
Funny how much of robotics is driven not just by what is practical, but by what feels alive to us.
The biggest reason for humanoid robots is that they will need to function in environments designed for humans and used by humans, sometimes even alongside the robots.
This is very different to something like a factory or even a warehouse, that can be designed to be used almost exclusively by the robots.
https://www.inceptivemind.com/toyota-gantry-robot-hangs-ceil...
You might now counter that legs are easy and a solved problem, sure, I won't deny that, but the point is that you should try to think out of the box.
For example, we bolt robot arms on tables, so that the work space is at a comfortable height for humans, but if the robot arm had the exact same intuition and intelligence as a human, you could just install it onto the floor. Suddenly the entire rationale, the table, which is the representative stand-in for "the world was designed for humans" is gone.
It's not that we necessarily need a specialized machine, it's that a generalized machine doesn't have to be humanoid.
We have automated large chunks of the economy already. I don't thing building humanoid robots is gonna drive a major further increase in automation.
For one, I don't think we have the technology for it. Servo motors is not it. The human hand has 20+ degrees of freedom. We're not gonna build a great robotic hand with step motors.
Given that this is a much simpler problem than a fully humanoid robot, I'm not going to hold my breath for those.
https://www.wired.com/review/matic-robot-vacuum/
I think the next advancement are robots like the MicroDuck [2], a little gimmicky, but demonstrating higher levels of intelligence that everybody can afford and collaborate on together. Once that has the ability to return to a docking station on low battery and recharge, you basically have a fully autonomous robot pet in your home.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboSapien
[2] https://pollen-robotics.com/microduck/
If we see rapid advances in robotics will alignment become a visceral concern for the population at large?
"HERE'S ROBBY!"
/cut to door chopping and robot led eye lights ...